Children of Sycorax

By D. L. Forbes

When a dozen years of sexual and mental abuse can no longer be concealed behind the façade of a normal upbringing, culminating in the mysterious disappearance of a local landlord, a young man must come to terms with himself and his history and decide if he wants to determine his own future, or let his ghosts decide it for him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543913491

Book preview

~ Part One ~

1.

Bryan’s Uncle Patrick went missing during the latter part of a Thursday afternoon in May of 1970, and although overcast and blustery, the day remained pleasantly mild and dry.

The initial police investigation on the Monday following the disappearance concluded – Mr Patrick Fitzpatrick, last seen Thursday during lunchtime in the saloon bar at a local public house where he consumed two pints of draught Guinness, a steak and mushroom pie, mash and a sausage. There he chatted with the barman and a couple of lunchtime regulars, who when the police asked, could think of nothing particularly unusual in Pat’s demeanour or speech. No one could swear to the exact time he left the bar, but agreed somewhere around 1: 30 P.M. He wore, as far as they could recall, a smart dark blue raincoat, with a hood lined in a red flannel material, a medium-blue woollen scarf, black trousers, black shoes, and a pair of black leather gloves – a man always nattily turned out.

The police later conjectured, Mr Fitzpatrick returned to his large detached residence after lunch, a two-minute walk from the public house. From there, somewhere between 1:30 and 4:30 P.M. he picked up a dark brown leather satchel, with shoulder strap, and left the house; the satchel he carried when collecting late rents from his various properties in London, and known often to carry sizeable sums of cash.

Bryan Fitzpatrick, the landlord’s fifteen-year-old nephew who dwelt alone with his uncle, returned to the empty house from school at approximately 4:30 P.M. with a school friend, Eric Miller who lived a five-minute walk from the premises with his grandmother. Mr Fitzpatrick did not return to the house. The nephew when asked, informed the police, as far as he could tell apart from the satchel and his uncle’s outdoor clothing nothing appeared missing, the house and contents in good and usual order.

A brief mention of the thirty-nine-year-old, Irish property owner’s disappearance appeared in a local newspaper the following week. By which time most people, including the police, believed the landlord probably murdered and robbed by one or more of his disgruntled tenants, and little hope of the body turning up. The police unofficially questioned several of his tenants.

A young male tenant remarked how: "Mr Fitzpatrick could act right chummy until late or short on the rent when he changed into a right surly bastard – hard as nails."

Another complained how: "He goes sniffing around after his late rents with a couple of heavies in tow; early evenings when he knows most people are in for their tea. There’s a bloke no one will miss."

A female tenant and mother of four pronounced him: "A right ladies-man; charm the birds if he wanted. Young too, and good looking in his dark, Irish gypsy way, swarthy like; though my husband says I must mean smarmy, not swarthy – or did he say slimy?"

Another suggested: "More likely than not he’s residing at the bottom of the Thames wearing concrete boots and collecting rents down there too, robbing the ruddy fish blind."

"I reckon he’s scarpered, another surmised, done a bunk for some heinous reason like IRA gun-running or dope-peddling, and laying low somewhere in the jungles of South America, or even South Kensington."

The last tenant interviewed observed bitterly: "All scum-lords like him eventually get what’s coming to ‘em, and I won’t lose sleep over no Irish Rackman."

Although Mr Fitzpatrick generally employed smart suit-wearing toughs to collect the bulk of his monthly rents from his properties in both London and in Dublin, when in either city he liked to personally attempt the collection of late rents; a pleasant diversion for he liked to see his tenants squirm often pleading for more time. The two louts when accompanying him received a percentage paid on the successful collection of back-rents from the more stubborn cases, often occasioning the heavies to leverage slightly more force than the law commonly made allowance. Mr Fitzpatrick preferred renting to lower working-class church-attending Catholics, with their prodigious progeny. A devout Catholic himself, Mr Fitzpatrick formed convenient friendships with local priests in his area of London and Dublin, who happily enough put in the boot of sin to the heads of delinquent renters in exchange for the good Patrick’s frequent generous contributions to the church and sundry funds.

Two weeks after Mr Fitzpatrick’s nonappearance, a police inspector confirmed unofficially, at present leads remained scant, but convinced the disappearance of this unsavoury sounding Irish landlord must indeed come under the heading of homicide, committed by person or persons unknown, due to robbery and or malice, or motive unknown.

After a month acquiring no further information the police paperwork for the case proceeded to ‘Records’ in the basement and placed in one of the scores of file cabinets marked, ‘pending further investigation.’ Short staffed, with many far more pressing and immediate cases to attend to, investigation into Mr Fitzpatrick’s disappearance essentially rested.

In September of the same year, the civil court in London ruled – Patrick Fitzpatrick’s estate, his properties, personal property, investments, and bank accounts in the United Kingdom placed in escrow for the period of six years. After which time, if the missing party remained in absentia an enaction would proceed against his last will. However, his properties, investments, and bank accounts in The Republic of Ireland would need dealing with separately.

Of the two beneficiaries in the last will of Mr Fitzpatrick: The Roman Catholic church the main beneficiary to receive the bulk of Mr Fitzpatrick’s substantial estate, in both the United Kingdom and in The Republic of Ireland; Church lawyers affirmed they would immediately take care of and finalise all details in both countries. The second beneficiary: Mr Fitzpatrick’s fifteen-year-old nephew, Bryan Fitzpatrick, who after the six-year period would reach the age of twenty-one years; Bryan Fitzpatrick would thereafter receive a monthly income from a trust fund already established for him in the UK.

In the meantime, as a minor and the responsibility of his uncle, the court further ruled Bryan would receive a monthly allowance from his uncle’s UK estate proper. An allowance adequate for the young man’s usual upkeep and general maintenance, shelter and schooling, to remain in place for the interim period of six years before the enactment of the willed trust fund.

Bryan lived in foster care for two years with a pleasant, though dull, elderly lawyer, and his dotty but well-meaning wife in Maida Vale; Eric, Bryan’s best friend referred to the old man as, Bryan’s foster-lawyer.

Two years later, at the age of seventeen, Bryan thinking of college in London and with an independent nature, the foster-lawyer through a contact found for Bryan, his foster-client a nearby unfurnished flat for rent; a large gloomy top floor flat of a three-storey Edwardian mansion block on Randolph Avenue. The flat instantly filled to overflowing with the copious furnishings, carpets, paintings, accessories, objet d’art and appliances from the contents of his uncle’s London house held in storage, all of which remained legally his uncle’s property.

The lawyer died later in the year from a stroke and his wife removed to a private care facility. These kindly people departed from Bryan’s life as promptly as they appeared leaving no mark physically or emotionally upon him for which Bryan saluted them. Apart from his best friend, Eric, Bryan remained alone in the world and rather liked the condition.

2.

Two years on, in their favourite pub where the landlord could not have cared less about their ages, Bryan and Eric sat with their pints of Guinness, Bryan took out his notebook, quietly reading over the essay he wrote earlier in the evening.

Eric looked gloomily at his friend: Don’t you think it’s kinda bad-mannered, you sat there reading stuff, when I’ve come over here on this skanky evening to sup a jar with you.

Oh, okay. Bryan slid his notebook back into his briefcase. I just wanted to make sure I got something straight.

Oh yeah, Eric looked at Bryan sombrely, and straight enough for you now, is it?

Well as straight as humanly possible, I suppose, Bryan replied brightly.

We can but live in hope, Bry – for your salvation, we live in hope.

Remember at school, the geek who took us for English, and how he told us in writing a good composition we must only depend on subjects we know something about?

No, I don’t as a matter of fact.

Well, at the library this evening I found a book of photographs of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, and thought I’d try to include them as subjects I know absolutely nothing about, in a brief essay.

Why?

I’ll read you what I wrote, shall I? Bryan pulled out his notebook.

No, that’s okay, Bry, but thanks all the same.

It’s short.

Eric sighed and resigned himself to oblige in the inevitable.

The title, Eric, Bryan announced, – "Golden Gate."

"Golden Gate," Bryan repeated carefully in his reading to Eric a story or poem voice:

"From the corner of the window he could see rising above the houses the glint of the setting sun upon the top of the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, the great International Orange single span bridge making such an impression on him the day he arrived in San Francisco.

"At the Bridge’s Toll Plaza gift shop, he read a pamphlet about the building of the bridge and the incredible feat of mechanical engineering constructed during the Depression years, 1927 into the early 1940’s; ‘genuine evidence of human excellence,’ the pamphlet stated, ‘a masterpiece both functional, beautiful, but most of all heroic.

Completed in 1937, the longest single span bridge in the world at the time - 1.2 miles across, 746-foot-tall towers, built to withstand winds of more than a hundred miles per hour and able to swing at mid-span as much as 27 feet. Bryan paused.

Is that it? Eric interrupted.

No, just shut up a minute. Bryan continued: "When he mentioned these interesting facts to the young woman at a bar the same evening, she shook her long hair from off her bare shoulders and looked with a mocking smile into her drink.

The main cables are 36.5 inches in diameter, he told her. Pretty amazing when you think about it, huh?

I suppose, she stated and smiled, rolling her eyes heavenwards; then as though the thought only just occurred to her, asked. How about coming back to my place and getting stoned and laid maybe?

He shrugged copying her eye rolling movement, stating: I suppose, in her same weary tone.

They laughed a lot over the next two days in her apartment as debauched as they knew how in 1970’s California-Modern.

On their second evening together, they exchanged underwear and took a cab out to the Golden Gate Bridge. They inaugurated their romantic walk hand in hand out across the incredible span, but she complained about the wind and the cold; her tiny briefs began to wedge and constrict him uncomfortably, so they turned back after a few hundred yards. She explained how the bridge gave her the creeps and how she dated a guy once who knew someone who survived the 260-foot suicide-jump; and another guy she dated about to jump when the cops grabbed him and hauled him off to San Francisco General psych ward for an involuntary seventy-two-hour observation and evaluation.

Well, and there you go then, Eric stated.

"A man, Bryan stated firmly to let Eric know the story not finished yet, A man named Greg Ellis the design engineer on the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, and Joseph Strauss the chief engineer, he told her. It took two decades and over two hundred million words to convince people a bridge across the Golden Gate feasible. Four and a half years to build the bridge – but Ellis achieved his dream."

Oh, how extraordinarily not interesting, she stated sarcastically.

Eric giggled.

Ellis’s visionary design, he stated, irritated with her and her tight underwear, with such beautiful, graceful lines and the most photographed man-made structure in the world. He knew he bored her. Photographed more than the pyramids, more than the Eiffel Tower . . .

Oh, how wonderfully unexciting.

Golden Gate required the largest underwater foundation piers ever built.

Yes, how completely uninspiring.

The tallest towers.

You don’t say.

The longest, thickest cables.

Oh, yes?

I can hear you screaming inside with abject boredom.

This bridge is a total downer, she shivered, her teeth chattering. They shouldn’t construct sidewalks on bridges like this; they’re just an open invitation an expensive suicide-platform for disturbed people, and since this bridge opened, the scene of literally thousands of deaths.

‘She cried later back in her bed when he told her he did not visualise any long-term relationship with her or anyone else right now. He told her he liked women well enough, but did not consider himself exactly what you might call standard-straight or even good standard boyfriend material. She wiped her eyes saying how amazing all the creeps in the City managed to gravitate into her bed.

Oh, well, thanks a lot, he stated, and out with the garbage.

No, I don’t mean you, particularly, you’re English anyway so you don’t count, and aren’t all Englishmen basically fags anyway? I mean one-hundred-percent of the guys I meet, you know, men you hope might turn out eventually as some, well you know, some decent marriage-material. But they never are; all I ever meet are bastards and bigots, and bisexuals.

Why do you think this happens? he asked, kissing and caressing her hair.

Oh, I don’t know, her tears flowed again, go figure.

Your Mr. Right maybe doesn’t go for women who hang-out in bars picking up men, thinking such women hump-able, but not marriage material or fit to bear his children. Join a social club, do volunteer work, or go to the library and read more; divert and stimulate your mind in a direction toward something other than men and relationships.

Yeah, I suppose, she sniffed, wiping away her tears." Bryan closed his notebook. There, all done.

Eric considered his friend for a moment: I can’t imagine you wearing the dirty knickers off some tart somehow, Bry.

No, nor can I; but I told you, I wrote this as an exercise in writing something I know nothing about. I’d like to go to California though someday.

Why? It’s in America.

Yes, I know and I’d like to visit San Francisco too.

I know why, because you want to meet another American bum-boy, like old, what’s-his-name?

Alan?

Yeah, Alan . . . and San Francisco I hear tell, all a swarm with horny bum-boys.

There are plenty of horny bum-boys in London if I want one, I don’t need to fly all the way to California to find a bum-boy; and why do you say, bum-boy? Why can’t you ever say, gay, or homosexual.

"Ever say, gay? I don’t know why you stick up for the gay, homosexual, fudge-packing, bum-boys so much, Eric laughed. Hey, I like ‘stick it up for the homos.’ You could put it on a T-shirt or a banner. Anyway Bry, we all know, and you admit in your story there, you’ve not a real bona fide card-carrying homo."

Shall I read you the poem I wrote on the tube the other evening? Bryan asked, wanting to change the subject.

Ignoring Bryan’s question Eric went on: Actually, when you come to think of gays though, Bry, biologically speaking, bum-boys, they’re like a more or less redundant subspecies aren’t they, and not much point in having gay bum-boys around really – biologically speaking?

You mean like extermination? Well, from where I’m sitting, Eric, you look like a more or less redundant subspecies yourself – biologically, and mentally speaking.

Bry, Eric looked at his friend and sighed. You’re my best mate in the whole world, right? Eric made another deep hole in his pint of bitter.

Yes, Bryan replied suspiciously, "and?"

"And so, you won’t take no offence like when I tell you I predict, one day, if you’re not real careful, the rozzers are going to find you dead down some alley, bum up in the air with a broken gin bottle shoved up your arse."

Oh, yes? Bryan challenged.

Yeah, Eric licked foam from his lips, "and wide end first."

Well, thanks for the detailed specifications.

Eric belched. You’re most welcome.

Eric and Bryan sat at their usual corner table in the Crown and Sceptre, the best table in the pub, in a nice position for keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the rest of the regulars and others who might wander in.

If asked, as a compositional exercise to give an on-the-spot knowledgeable thumbnail description of Eric, Bryan would say: "Eric is about 5’9", square-shaped and stocky, but muscular, with the beginnings of a tiny beer-belly which he’s chronically sensitive about; and a subject of which everyone knows on pain of death to steer clear. Eric is dark, handsome, with a rugged jaw, and thick black hair, which he likes to keep short. He possesses a warm Mediterranean air particularly when in a scowling mood, eyes deep set and small, which Rowena, his long-time girlfriend sometimes calls beady. Easy-going, Eric does not like waves, and his clichéd motto: ‘anything for a quiet life.’ He can and frequently is bloody irritating."

If Eric tortured on a rack threatened with his thumbnails ripped out into producing a thumbnail sketch of Bryan, he would write: "Bryan’s tall, about 6’3", slim with light blondish hair and pale skin. Once, this new younger bum-boy English master at school showing off and thinking he was so clever, told Bryan off in front of the class. Saying Bryan resembled an elongated, slightly masculinised version of some old dead woman writer named Virginia Woolf, and would Bryan in class please act more like a studious schoolboy and refrain from socialising like a Bloomsbury hostess – or similar ponce-like words. Bryan, not traditionally handsome, though not traditionally ugly either – average looks you might say – English-looking, like a friendly neddy. He has broad shoulders and a small waist, a swimmer’s body and a good mate, but bloody irritating at times when the mood takes him."

In the highly unlikely event of anyone asking Rowena, Eric’s girlfriend of the last five years, to describe the boys, she would express in simple terms: "Eric and Bryan are both twenty, and friends since they started school together as tots, even though they’re complete opposites in looks and brains – temperamentally you might say. When you see them sitting together down the local, they make you think of an old married couple or like Gert and Daisy or Laurel and Hardy rolled into one. I’m sure they used to do-the-dirty together when in their far-flung pubescence, but I don’t care, I never say anything, well not much, because it’s what all disgusting schoolboys get up to. I know as I’ve two disgusting younger brothers and all men are all the bloody same the whole world over anyway."

When in a bad mood, Rowena’s jealousy often toyed with the ongoing theme of aspects of the boy’s long matey friendship, making remarks regarding their not so Platonic past. Eric claimed he did not remember anything, and leave-off and shut up about the bloody past. Bryan remembered vividly, but their experimental demonstrative kissing and hand-jobs lasted off and on for probably no longer than six months.

Bryan thought Rowena okay for a girl, of the type, and grew rather fond of her over the years. Not a particularly attractive young woman, but exceptionally well formed in the bust-line and interesting to look at, like some overblown, strung-out buxom 60’s Italian tart. She wore heavy war paint and did home bleach jobs, her platinum to yellow mop worn in a hair-sprayed bouffant, or sometimes flat, ironed-out beatnik style. She favoured miniskirts, low-cut blouses, push-up bras, black mesh-tights, killer heels. Bryan mistakenly told her once she: ‘looked like her own individual work of art in progress.’ Highly flattered, she went into fashion-overdrive for several months, unfortunately transforming herself into an extraordinarily looking though not too convincing drag queen.

Rowena also displayed the habit of making entirely inconsequentially statements in the middle of conversations. Once when Bryan and Eric talked about the price of single malt Irish whisky, Rowena suddenly declared: You know what I hate more than anything? I hate getting called a bitch, she sipped demurely at her gin and tonic. I think I’d rather get called a cunt than a bitch.

Eric stared at her for a moment: Right then. He stood up. My round I’m a-thinking.

You know, Eric, your image of me with this broken gin bottle rammed up my bum comes from a curiously appealing, though clearly a sick and twisted mind.

Yeah, I know, Eric replied happily, but thanks anyway. Eric, a great one for the sick and twisted; they both loved the genre, and their keen sense of the ridiculous bonded them since the age of four, along with their other sundry boy-secrets. After all, they were at school together, and started primary school on the same day, sitting about in the sandpit uninhibitedly chucking sand at the other kids and peeing in their pants together for the hell of it.

Anyway, Bryan continued, I told you last week I didn’t intend coming down the Crown so much for a while. I told you already, I want to do some writing.

"Do some writing? Eric repeated, holding his pint mid-air and staring menacingly at Bryan. Do some writing? You dirty bastard . . . yeah, dirty knickers writing more like."

Eric, Bryan understood, did not possess a literary turn of mind, or much of any turn of mind. One might say, did say, Eric stood common-and-proud, and not only regular-common but dead-common, and for the rest of the time common-as-muck. Unlike Bryan, Eric happily left school at sixteen to learn a trade, apprenticing at a fancy metalwork factory – gates, balconies and the like, which did not leave him much time for reading or permitting any truck with writing.

Apart from forced by the Gestapo to read at school, I’ve not knowingly opened a book in years, Eric stated proudly, and not reading nothing ain’t never done me no harm.

Bryan stayed on at school to take his O levels, transferring to a tech to take three A levels, and though encouraged at college to apply for a place at university he prevaricated over where and what to study; and then suffering acute educational institution burnout decided to take a year off. He hung about for a few months writing stories and doing nothing, then when offered an interesting job with a large international German corporation with a good salary, benefits and prospects, and his German more than passable, he accepted; and if the job did not work out, the following year he would apply to university.

"I need to achieve something, Bryan looked at Eric earnestly. I need to write something."

You’re always writing something, poems and the like, Eric counselled, and I hear tell you popped one out on the tube the other evening, and you just wrote your latest dirty knickers piece. What more do you want?

They drank in silence for a while eyeing a group of young women giggling and playfully eyeing them from over at the bar.

So, what’s this underground tube poem about then? Eric forced himself to ask while occupied smiling at the girls.

Bryan wished he never mentioned the poem, and knew better than to read anything to Eric with any reference to women’s underwear, which he knew he would hear about now for weeks. Well, basically it’s about the soul crushing monotonous routine of riding up and down on the tube to and from work day after day, year after year.

Right, Eric nodded, musing. Yes, this sounds like an ace poem you’ve got going there, Bry.

Is life all beer and skittles to you, Eric? Does anything ever move you? Do you possess any creative spirit apart from whacking bits of hot metal about?

Sure, lots move me. Now look at the milk jugs on the redhead over there, they very positively move me . . . and the only creative spirit moving me much these days, Bry, is Scotch . . . and your round I’m-a-thinking, and mine’s a double on the rocks this time, thanks.

Bryan knew Eric mostly feigned upset and jealousy over the thought of abandonment because of some, ‘unwritten-writing’ as Eric called Bryan’s novel in the works. As Bryan returned to the table he could see Eric sitting there building up more fake offense and doing some rather low brow, common-as-muck thinking, particularly as the two flirting women annoyingly just left.

You know what you could write a great poem about? Eric suggested with his snarly sideways look Bryan often thought, angry-young-man sexy. Write a poem about how some morning the fuzz will discover you down an alley with a gin bottle stuffed up your arse.

Oh yes? Bryan challenge. You truly enjoy your poetic image of my bum stuffed up down an ally, don’t you?

Yeah, Eric smiled, "I do as it happens . . . and remember to write about how your eyes went all watery and glazed when they thrust it in, the thick end first . . . and broken."

Thanks, I’ll certainly remember to point out your graphic details to my assailants.

"Do . . . and I can see your forthcoming collection of poetry, too, clearly floating before mine eyes as on a golden cloud, miraculously already written in some unwritten book; coo, maybe I’m having my monthly pre-destination."

"I think prognostication or presentiment the words you’re pitifully groping for, or menses maybe?"

"Yeah, right on, Bry, cheers, mate."

3.

Busy at work all week completing a project, Bryan saw the approaching weekend as a new chance, a kick-start at serious and earnest endeavour in pressing forward with his book existing at present only in scribbled form filling half a dozen one hundred-page notebooks.

Unfortunately, he remembered promising an old friend, Jeffery, he would attend a get-together for Fred on Saturday afternoon who died the month before of rectal cancer, rapidly spreading to just about everywhere. As a fitting memorial to dead Fred, his old mates arranged to assemble up at Jackstraw’s Castle on Hampstead Heath, and after swilling a jar or two to his memory, scatter Fred’s ashes in the wooded area down behind the pub. Fred requested his ashes scattered along the gay cruisy area, in amongst the ‘sex bushes’ where Fred spent a good part of the last decade of his life; claiming this the spot where he developed his malignancy in the first place from his rear-end so vociferously and indiscriminately enter-tained – the theory sounding implausible to Bryan, but Fred-appropriate.

Commencement of the solemn ceremony inconveniently created in Bryan’s mind an entirely new beginning to his novel as he stood with nine other men on the Saturday afternoon, clustered about in the bushes looking like members of some revivalist sect, or like a formal and polite group-sex assemblage with no one much inclined to start the ball rolling. Lone men cruised up and down and around the group, intrigued or irritated at this invasion of their public privacy.

Jeffery clutched the grey plastic urn spouting a lot of untruths and unnecessarily sentimental nonsense about dead-Fred, before unscrewing the lid and saying: Okay, I’ll hand the urn around so we can each scatter some of Fred’s ashes, as a remembrance.

As a remembrance, Bryan wanted to ask, of what exactly – Fred’s gaping sloppy-seconds bum-hole.

Bryan usually not squeamish about such matters, the idea of plunging his hand into dead Fred’s remains, or cremains as someone referred to the ash and gritty bone fragments did not appeal. When his turn came, he took a sniff to see if he could detect a whiff of Brut the fragrance Fred liked to dab or douse over himself and muttered: "Pass," handing on the urn.

Bryan thought not peeing or vomiting against the wind a generally sensible plan of action and to this list added fine human ash, for a truly disgusting spectacle ensued as gusts of wind picked up and brought on Adrian’s asthma. Brushing specs from their hair and clothing, coughing, sneezing, and rubbing Fred from their eyes the ten staggered back up to the car park.

Yes, well I guess Fred got the last laugh there, someone quipped.

Yes, Bryan thought, and even dead Fred, an annoying little sod.

4.

Away from ash but not the sense of morbidity, Bryan sat at a table in a secluded area of the library his mind drifting into writing a few reminisces regarding the phenomena of prepubescent sex and orgasm, not his own. He sucked on the end of his pencil wondering at Eric’s reaction if he ever attempted to read anything to Eric regarding any infant’s second-hand experience with orgasm, the anti-topic an immediate red-rag with Eric.

Bryan jotted away, writing of himself as a child of five when one afternoon he sought his mother out in her private sitting room to appraise her how: Mummy, you know man-pigs? Well, man-pigs do a five-minute orgasm.

His long, beautiful mother reclined against pillows on her chaise longue smoking a pink cigarette, absorbed in her newly arrived issue of French Vogue, she replied absently without looking up: "What, dear. . . what’s an orgasm, dear?"

Her obliviousness and perhaps irritation at his sudden appearance in her private sitting room with a pig orgasm question irritated him, too, for he did not know for sure himself. He wanted her to show an interest in him at least, and in his statement, and he wanted to let the secret cat out of the bag as his uncle insistently told him not to; but what would happen if they left the cat in the bag? Would the cat get cross and cry or get hungry and die, or run away? Who knew? Who could tell? Well, only very stupid people must leave their cats lying around in bags anyway.

His mother’s younger brother, Uncle Patrick, told Bryan in deadly secret about the lucky men-pigs who experienced astonishing five-minute orgasms. Bryan promised-promised-promised his uncle again-again-again since years and ages before at the age of four or less, he would never-never-never tell anyone about any of the-it. Nevertheless, Bryan thought if he might manage to prompt his mother into idly revealing some information by mistake, he in turn would tell her by mistake all about what Uncle Pat did in secret.

Apart from the orgasm word, Bryan thought he knew a lot about the-it and now wondered if his mother knew anything about the-it. He wondered if his mother – only the most beautiful person in the whole world outside of France, did the-it Uncle Patrick liked to do with him so much and in secret when alone in the house or in a locked bathroom. She possibly did not understand the word, or too busy looking at the long glossy ladies in the French magazine and so not concentrating on the orgasm word. Maybe he did not pronounce orgasm exactly right and the word French – many words came in French these days, the language his mother loved best; his mother loved everything French the best. Perhaps orgasm came in Latin – Latin the language God spoke, and Uncle Pat knew God personally and had a best friend in Jesus – like a brother to him, Jesus, Uncle Pat told him, and a bit like a business partner, too. Uncle Pat met God and Jesus all the time up at the pub to drink Guinness or at the church to drink the blood of Christ and eat of his flesh which grew back during the week; and where Bryan could not go because of existing as an unspeakably sinful heathen boy. Uncle Pat claimed Bryan’s mother acted canny and not always as stupid as she pretended, so maybe she pretended not to know about the men-pig orgasm – but why? He imagined a picture of his long mother doing, the-it with one of her fancy men and with Uncle Pat, and with a short fat man-pig, which made him laugh, and his mother sighed to let him know he irritated her and to go away.

Doing the-it still sometimes muddled him with all the orgasm and the mess – five minutes for men-pigs and a few seconds for Uncle Pat. Did the word orgasm mean the sticky mess jumping out of Uncle Pat’s willy-hole? Pigs all a horrible stinky sticky mess, and little wonder if all the white stuff jumped out of their willy-holes for a whole five minutes and glad he did not do the-it with a piggy-wig’s willy. Unless he could make the pig-willy mess jump off into a jam jar, the big jam jar with a tied string handle he kept from collecting last year’s frog-spawn.

Bryan wrote in his notebook how he did not remember his father, for Uncle Pat told Bryan how Bryan’s father ran off screaming out the house tearing at his hair with both hands because Bryan got himself born such an ugly, long fright of a baby. Uncle Pat thought Bryan’s father should mercifully have worn on his willy a French letter made of rubber to stop Bryan’s con-tra-ception as a mercy to himself and a kindness to everyone else; even though the true Catholic church abhorred such an article as a French letter so as not to allow Bryan to get even born. One of his mother’s fancy men, a Mr Rubber-Johnny, owned a special article called a rubber sheath; and this fancy man, Mr Rubber-Johnny, his uncle told Bryan, needed to sluice out the brownish sausage skin after every use, and dry and powder the evil contraption. Twice the fancy Johnny-man left his rubber sheath in the bathroom on purpose for Bryan and his uncle to find. Twice Bryan and his uncle found the rubber sheath and laughed, and when his uncle tried the evil contraption on, the rubber sheath went on so tight because his Uncle Pat’s willy grew so big and looked like a fat greasy sausage. His uncle put the rubber sheath on Bryan’s willy; and far too big the rubber sheath dangled and fell off the end onto the floor, which made them giggle a lot and whisper: "Hush, hush . . . and Shush . . . quiet now." Uncle Pat with Bryan’s help did the-it inside the fancy Mr Johnny’s rubber sheath and left all the mess inside saying this will give the devil something to think about all right.

Bryan thought grownups acted so strange nearly always and not a bit like real people behaved in books, or like a nice cat or dog or a budgie. Particularly his uncle, getting cross with him so much, and not talking to him because he did not want always to do the-it all the time if sick, or playing, or sleepy in bed, and wanting to love him and do the kissing on the lips and all over, with the wet mess jumping out at the end and everything.

Bryan’s mother sighed again, and so Bryan sighed too, and in reply to his mother’s question about the orgasm he grumpily left her in her French sitting room and her soppy French Vogue, saying what his uncle told him: "Oh, orgasm . . . just the something pigs do to make bacon, of course!"

Bryan sat looking about the library chewing the end of his pencil, remembering Eric and himself at fourteen, and Eric proudly informing Bryan, how his new sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Rowena, with him only went multi-orgasmic when he porked her in her hairy twat wearing a Durex. Bryan not understanding exactly what Eric meant, replied she looked as though she might, which annoyed Eric no end, and who wanted to know what the hell Bryan meant by his remark. Bryan replied he did not mean anything . . . well, not much, but sometimes in those days when Rowena got hot and bothered she did look and sound a lot like a pink painted, porky sow pig.

Bryan took his time re-sharpening his already sharp pencil before he wrote about his very first remembrances of his Uncle Pat, singing to him:

"Come along now Bryan, my dear, and sit up here on your Uncle Pat’s lappy-lap-lap – there’s a good lad and I’ll ride you all the way to Market on my cock-horse. Up we go.

‘Ride a cockhorse to Bambury Cross’ . . . you like this ah, lad, you like to ride on your uncle’s cockhorse?

‘To see a fine lady upon her white horse’ . . . you like this, yes, I can tell you do.

‘With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes’ . . . Yes, you like riding on my long cockhorse, don’t you, son?

‘She shall have music wherever she goes . . . Hmm, yes, so smooth your skin . . . and again, one more time, and soon my cockhorse will come all over Bambury Cross . . ."

Bryan put down his pencil, stretched his arms and yawned – scrambling all week at the office finishing the project and then chucking ash on the Heath, and now at the library writing all this stuff he did not mean to write. He thought how he would rather go over to the Crown for a pint with Eric, with a steak and onion pie and mash for dinner. Pub food and Guinness, the staples of his Uncle Pat’s lunchtime diet, though his uncle continually professing to retain a most civilised and sensitive palate of a knowledgeable gourmet, plus a skilled connoisseur of rare and fine wines.

Bryan looked at his notebook, visualising his uncle’s look, his uncle’s smirk at the idea of his nephew attempting to write a novel, saying: "So you’ve been a smooching at on the old Blarney stone have you, and great novel writing we’re at now, are we . . . the great Irish novel, ah! And who the hell do you think you are then, Mr James bloody Joyce, is it? A load of bloody old cobblers it is! Jesus, lad, aren’t there enough abysmal, godless books in the world without you adding to the blazing pyre?" Novel writing to Uncle Pat, heinous as devil-worship or selling envelopes on the Sabbath as did some ungodly newsagents over in odious England.

Uncle Patrick decided Bryan must go into the ‘family empire’ as he called his ‘portfolio of properties,’ and Bryan’s surname changed from his lost, hair-tearing father’s rubbishy name of Gibson to his own fine name, Fitzpatrick; which took place when Bryan turned six, the week after Bryan’s mother died.

Uncle Pat would say: . . . And never you worry yourself about going to no university, lad, where they’ll teach you a lot of useless claptrap, and nothing you can learn there about owning property or moving money, or use in the real higher education of a simple Christian life.

Uncle Patrick, the only Catholic soul in the family and to his eternal shame not Catholic-born but merely a zealous early teen convert, a lesser Catholic. God knew though, God understood Uncle Pat remained an innocent – his birth the sole fault of ungodly parents, those primitive tree-worshipping Protestant; and he would show them all – he himself the equal to any born Catholic. A high-minded fervent pervert of a convert he, wealthy and generous to the Church, a confirmed bachelor, a pious pederast so well camouflaged not even The Good Lord suspected, or would not care if He did know – and natural boy-love such an ancient and harmless little penchant, too.

Uncle Patrick informed Bryan: "When you turn sixteen, lad, you’re coming into the family business like I always planned for you; and even though you’re but the poor fatherless son of a hell bound Protestant, God and I know at heart you’re a Fitzpatrick through and through. Did I not tell your poor mother not to change her name to Gibson, God rest her soul, when she married the fellow your father, Gibson; and what description of an unholy Sassenach name, Gib-son, son-of-Gib, anyway? Bryan Gibson? No, I think not. Now, Bryan Fitzpatrick – there’s a name with a bit of cachet . . . some élan, a touch of the upper-crust parlance about it; and please, let us hear no more shenanigans about going to any university, if you don’t mind, the subject remains once and for all time closed . . . do you hear me now?"

Bryan once heard his mother say to a friend: I’ve never met such a contrary man as our Pat; and already he’s got our Bryan’s life planned out for him, and going to turn the boy into the great property tycoon, and the lad not yet five. Pat says there’s no point in us thinking about Bryan’s education, putting his name down for any of those luxury English or Irish schools, nor even the grammar or Techs when there’s all the property and investments he’ll need to learn about and manage; and all Bryan needs is to attend the local primary and secondary schools until he’s sixteen. Pat says there’s nothing in the world like thoroughly good hand’s-on experience. Ah well, there’s no harm in the man, and he’s good with our Bryan. Bryan’s mother smiled. Pat couldn’t love Bryan more if his own son.

Uncle Pat loved with thoroughly good hand’s-on experience, with marauding, pawing fingers, with his sweat and rude wet whisperings: ‘Upsy-daisy’ – Bryan sometimes thought his name Upsy-Daisy, or so his mother once implied, for his uncle used the name every time he lifted Bryan. His uncle would upsy-daisy Bryan, making him squeal with delight, bouncing baby Bryan’s bare bottom up and down on his own bare lumpy lap to make him do a hot wee-wee, up and down, up and down between his Uncle’s legs, up and down singing all the while in quick smack-whack time: –

"Singing doodle-eye, doodle-eye, doodle-eye day . . .

As I was walking down an old Dublin street

I met a poor boy with no shoes on his feet,

As I’d lots of money and plenty to spare

I went into a fruit shop and bought him a pear,

Singing doodle-eye, doodle-eye, doodle-eye day."

One, two, three, four-year-old Bryan loved his uncle, loved the attention, screeching, holding on tight, unaware of his use as a golden shower and masturbatory device. No one suspected anything . . . Patrick Fitzpatrick so handsome and so wealthy, in his prime and not yet thirty – no one’s idea of a sexual deviant:

Nick-knack, Paddy-whack, ride on your uncle’s bone . . ..

Bryan thought of Eric sitting there all alone without him, abandoned and grumpy at the pub, or worse, alone with some of their old schoolmates telling them about his dirty knicker story even though he knew Eric never would; or worse of all, alone with Rowena in one of her sour sow moods.

Yes, he would go and find Eric anyway; as he did himself no good sitting in the library with the same old thoughts, mulling over the same old history and nothing to do with novel writing. Bryan stood up, put his pencil and notebook back into his bag and left the library.

He needed Eric, needed Eric’s safe physical presence – to bask in Eric’s warmth, absorb Eric’s strength and his, well – his love. Since small kids together, Bryan regularly basked near Eric when Uncle Pat made him too sad or afraid; Eric, like his own personal mini God and how comforting to give oneself over to a deity and not need to care anymore, simply bask in the strength of one’s protective, loving God. Eric knew about Bryan’s basking because when a bit older Bryan mistakenly tried to explain the basking phenomena to Eric, although leaving out the warmth and absorbing strength, and the God and love bits. He told Eric, having him near made him more secure and able to cope better with everything.

Eric replied in his usual combined dour and cheerful way: Yes, I’m a naturally generous natured basking object, adding, but you know, Bry, I charge for basket cases basking. I charge two-and-sixpence an hour for basking. Bryan agreed on the price, deciding he would not tell Eric when he basked. Sometimes though, Eric would look at Bryan and ask accusingly: You’re not basking in my comforting and warm presence by any chance, are you?

Bryan would say no.

Well, if I catch you basking without permission, basking’s five-bob-an-hour.

But you told me basking’s half-a-crown an hour.

"Yes, but sneaky bastard basking’s double, mate."

As Bryan walked quickly through the gloomy evening drizzle, light-headed from skipping lunch, he looked up at the rusting sign of the long-departed ABC cafe where his uncle used to take him for lunch, or dinner, when he did not want to cook and when his mother stayed away working or in France doing her gadding. Bryan decided to get fish and chips on his way over to the pub.

You are the White Tide Man, Bryan would declaim to his uncle, and I claim my five pounds. The White Tide soap-powder Man on the telly commercial acted suave and slick like Uncle Pat.

So, its five pounds you’re after now, is it? Uncle Pat would say. Well, it’s five bob for you, but only if you’re a good lad.

Blackjacks, two for a halfpenny, one for a farthing, farthing coins with the tiny robin on them . . . toffee-tart, spotted-dick, roly-poly pudding and who wants seconds on custard? "Meeeee!" – And the secret unexplainable tears alone in bed when happy and so sad all at the same time.

Here Bryan, quick! his uncle would say. "Pull my finger . . . quick!"

"Nooo!" Bryan would happily shriek, but pull his uncle’s finger anyway, and his uncle’s bum-hole would make the loud music of the derriere – the London derriere they called their farts.

Uncle Pat loved to watch the telly. Coronation Street, twice a week, his uncle’s favourite, with the three gossiping witches – hair-netted Ena Sharples, and Martha Longhurst, and what’s-her-name . . . Minnie Caldwell, sitting tight over their caldron of milk stout in the snug at the Rover’s Return. Uncle Pat loved Elsie Tanner best, and her no-good, angry young son, Dennis.

Watch out, Ena! Here comes Elsie Tanner the brazen hussy on the warpath again, handbag a-swinging, hands on hips.

Watch out, Elsie! Here comes sharp-tongued, organ-thumping Ena Sharples!

Bryan sat on the carpet in front of one of his uncle’s black and white telly sets, a lonely, quiet child when not with Eric, in their big houses in London or in Dublin, watching Muffin the Mule, pretending not to know what his Uncle Pat did behind him on the sofa.

His mother came in later from the pictures, or from a job, or from gadding with a fancy man.

Bryan been a good boy, Pat? she would always ask.

Oh, yes, he’s a good boy all right – ah, Bryan? Good as gold, aren’t you?

On the telly, they watched the quiz show, Take Your